Happy Birthday Elder C!!

Thanksgiving

Week Eighteen

Yo what's up fam. 

First off thank you for all of your birthday wishes everyone. You are all so awesome! 

OK. So this week was one for the books. So much great times and stories. So I'll tell you one. So we serve at the Catholic church's food kitchen. It's where all of my Catholic grandma's reside. After working there one day we got a call from one of the younger grandma's. She was helping this guy out and asked if we'd go stack some wood for him. So of course we said yes (get those brownie points) so she tells us the place to go. The man recently lost his hearing aid so he's super deaf. She leaves before we get there and tells us just to walk right in. So we get there and walk in. There was no one on the main floor,and he wasn't in his office. So we start yelling his name really loud. Then we heard a small russle. It came from upstairs. So we look around then look at each other, and begin to slowly walk up the stairs in his house. You don't know true missionary work until you're sneaking up the stairs of an old man's home. Well we got up there and it felt like a scene straight out of a movie. And I kid you not this old man is in a swivel chair looking out the window on the phone. He hears us call his name and he swivels around puts the phone down, and says "Welcome, I've been expecting you." It was amazing. He's had a crazy life. After helping him out we told him about our church and he said he knew all about us. It was a good time.

Thanksgiving was a good time too. We were able to have Thanksgiving at a members house. She invited a bunch of people who didn't really have family to spend it with. So it was us her and a buuuuunch of non members. It was really good. There were some of the best green beans I've ever had. Idk what was in them. Some old dude refilled my ginger ale with a glass of wine. I almost drank it, but I looked at it and realized there was no carbonation anymore. That was a close one.

At festival of lights we walked around and talked to a buuuuunch of people. The most I've talked to in a day. We told everyone about Light the World. We even invited Santa Claus to church. He was all casual, and asked us where we were from. Then after we finished talking to him he said "My name is Santa Claus" and then he walked off. We invited the Grinch to learn more about the Gospel, and he told us he was Baptist. So I guess the Grinch is Baptist. So there's that.

A lot of progress with our investigators. We are going to invite two to be baptized this next week so let's pray everything goes well. 

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. 

Merry Christmas and     #lighttheworld 

View from the house they stacked wood at

Pictures from the Festival of Lights

Brother Roger's drum set

Thanksgiving Day leaf raking service

Birthday party at the barn

A sister in the branch made these for the Elders

Selfies of the week:

Happy Birthday Elder C!!!

Happy 19th Birthday to this amazing missionary!!  Our family is so proud of him and his service.  We feel so blessed that he is in such a beautiful place with such kind and loving people.  In honor of his birthday, please do some random acts of service for others today!!!

Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 8

Week Seventeen

So this week was fun. I think I say that about every week though. I mean it's true though. I'm pretty sure every mission you go on you can have a good time though.

Anyways this week I did a lot of walking. We were cut about 150 miles off of our car this month so we are going to have to do our best walking everywhere. One thing about New England is that every city is connected by highways. So we have to walk on the side of the highway to go everywhere. It's safe though. There's plenty of room on the side of the road. We also found some new investigators that way. So that's a nice blessing.

The past two weeks we had a less active we had never seen before coming to church. We stopped her and asked her how she was doing and introduced ourselves. I kid you not this is what she said "Hi I'm Molly I want you over for dinner tomorrow." It was so awesome. So of course we went and had dinner with her. She has a cool background. So she just joined the church like 6 years ago, but when she got married her husband wouldn't let her go. Well let's just say her husband isn't a problem anymore. Haha. So she told us she wants to change her life and get it back on track. So after dinner she told us she wanted to meet more and go over all of the lessons again. Well, we planned an appointment for the next Wednesday.   She told us she was going to get her friend Tony to come so that we could come into the house, but she said he wouldn't really be interested. We showed up Wednesday and not only was Tony there, but so was another girl named Molly. All three of them were engaged in the lesson and now Tony and the other Molly are now investigating the church. It was a cool miracle.

Another thing I've learned while being out here is what I want my future to be like. Every day I go in and out of broken homes, not only metaphorically, but physically.  It helps to see these things now while I'm still young. It helps me build in my mind what kind of environment I want to be in when I'm older. And it will definitely be clean.

Overall this week was good. It was one of those filler weeks that happen before the fun starts. So I'd say it was pretty good. Also Rockland put up a huuuuge lobster trap tree. It's the biggest one in the world. There's probably only like 3 in the world, but still. I forgot to mention this, but we went up to Bangor for like a mini zone conference type of thing. Bangor is pretty cool. They've got a lot of people out there. So many that Brewer, the neighboring area was turned into a biking area. RIP to them in the winter. So that's a big deal for our mission. A lot of people probably don't realize this but my mission is pretty dang rural. So much that the word (boonie) was banned. 

Anyways, I hope you all have a fun week, and have a great Thanksgiving. 

Lobster Trap Tree in Rockland, Maine

Downtown Camden, Maine.

The Megunticook River literally runs THROUGH Camden.

The highway we walk on to travel to other towns.

Elder Peterson and a cat.

 Members hooked us up with pizza.

Selfie of the week:

Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 7

Week Sixteen

So here I am just chilling sleeping on a Friday morning when out of nowhere I wake up and find myself looking out the window to see a bunch of snow coming down.  It wasn’t sticking or anything but I had been wearing short sleeves the day before just like normal. I don't know how it got so cold so fast but it did. It didn't go over 30 degrees that day. It also was like constant 30 mph wind. So later that night we were walking around dying in the cold and knocking on doors. That's when one of our investigators George was concerned for us. He was asking us why we were even outside. He was like its cold cold. Even for a Mainer. It was honestly probably like 0 degrees out there with the wind chill. It definitely makes me nervous for the upcoming season. It probably won't be as windy but it will get that cold without the wind soon enough. Luckily I went to a member’s house and had her teach me how to tie a scarf. Scarfs are pretty cool when you tie them around your face. You feel like a snow cowboy.

Good news. I finally got to drive this week. It was for a long time too. Funny circumstances - as missionaries you go on something called exchanges. You exchange your companion with someone new and you learn how other missionaries teach and stuff. Well usually they last for a day and then you switch back. Well this week we exchanged with Ellsworth and it turned into a week long exchange.  I was here in Rockland for all of it, and because I'm out of 12 week I got to drive. It was fantastic. Elder Petersen has almost killed us like 10 times and it felt good I had my life in my hands for a change😂😂  Anyways the exchange turned into a 5 day long exchange. Ellsworth Elders got an email saying they had to drive up to Bangor and down to Manchester out of nowhere on Wednesday morning. It was quite the surprise. Elder Swainston and I had just finished weekly planning and he decided to check his emails. It's a good thing he did because we called Ellsworth and they didn't even know they had received the email. So that switched things up and we ended up exchanging back after district meeting on Friday.   According to Elder Branch if you are with a missionary for more than 4 days you are considered companions. So now I have a new companion to put on my list. So that's pretty cool.

As a mission we are memorizing The Living Christ. Yes you read that correctly. I know the document is indeed large in stature, but President Blair promised some pretty powerful blessings if we did it. So I'm trying pretty hard. I've got the first 2 paragraphs down. I've still got a long way to go, but it will be worth it in the end.

Other than all of that stuff not too much happened. We taught a good amount of lessons this week. Kinda the normal amount though. We are working at getting more members present at lessons, and it's been a little tough. Not getting them there though. Because we are such a small branch we have to invite the same people a lot to come teach with us. A lot of our investigators don't drive either so they need rides a lot too. Luckily though the members are being blessed in many ways for helping us missionaries out. This branch has been very good to me and I definitely am glad this is my first area. It'll be interesting to see what the rest of my mission has in store for me member wise.

Anyways have a good week everyone and I hope life treats you well. 

 

Rockland

Snowing

Selfies of the week:

with Elder Swainston

Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 6

Week Fifteen

At Breakwater

Well everyone I'm officially a greenie now. It took a long time but I made it. Ya know it's kinda nice though. They say you're not really accountable for anything as a missionary until you're not a greenie. So basically everything I do wrong or if we mess up on something it's on my companion😂😂 so that's one benefit.

Holy cow though this transfer went by fast. I'm scared to see how fast the rest of my transfers go. I can only imagine what they feel like when you've been out for like a year and a half. I made it over 3 months now so that's cool. It feels like it's been more than 3 months,, but they have also been the fastest 3 months of my life.

Well here's the news/ update on transfers...................... I'M STAYING IN ROCKLAND! yeah boiiiiiii. All I wanted was one more transfer here and my wish has been granted. I’m staying with Elder Petersen for at least 6 more weeks. Crazy thing is our zone was nearly untouched. Yesterday we all got up and sang at stake conference with the youth and President and Sister Blair were there. After practicing with the youth all of us went down and started to talk to all of our members. When we finished Elder Petersen and I went up to President Blair and started chatting with him. He literally gave us our transfer calls on the spot😂 He told us how well we were working and that this next transfer we were going to really click. So we didn't get any of the excitement from waiting for a phone call, President Blair just gave us the lowdown right then and there. After stake conference we held an impromptu meeting and he told us that when he prayed about switching our Bangor zone, the Lord basically slapped him and told him to keep it the same. So only 4 companionships from the entire zone are changing. 3 of which have to change because the Elders from them are going home. Peace out elder Sabisky✌️😭 It's crazy how some people you just have that instant friendship. He was in my zone not even my district. I only got to hang out with him probably 5 times, but we are already planning on partying after my mission. Haha no need to worry about that though. Still got a lot of work to do.

So there was a storm this week. It was quite the storm I guess you could say.  It happened on Monday morning. It was raining and there were some pretty strong gusts of wind. Since leaves were on trees still and it had been raining a little bit before the storm hit, the leaves were holding a lot of water. So all of these trees became top heavy. Then these powerful gusts of wind hit and it just began uprooting all sorts of trees. It was crazy. It was the worst storm here in Maine since the ice storms of ‘98. Over 500,000 homes lost power. Ours included. So we lost power on Monday and it didn't return until Saturday. It was a pretty humbling experience. We had no water either. I really respect you foreign missionaries without running water and power out there. I was washing my clothes when the power went out and so I didn't really have much to wear either. Luckily my branch is awesome and a sister from it washed my clothes. Btw I don't know why no one has ever enlightened me, but FABRIC SOFTENER MAKES YOUR CLOTHES SMELL SO GOOD. Hot dang I can still smell my clothes today. I got like 5 compliments on how good my clothes smell. So we stayed with the Belfast Elders until Saturday. Haha President and Sister Blair separately told us on like 5 different occasions to check and clean our fridge. Luckily our fridge is all safe, and nothing went bad in it. The neighbors ran an extension cord to it and hooked it up for a few hours twice a day.

This week was crazy though. With a lot of people without power and a lot of trees everywhere we set out to go help some people. It was all fun and games until this dude had us help him lift a wheelchair into his truck. This wasn't your everyday wheelchair. This thing was like the xxwheelchair5000xx. It was honestly probably 300 pounds. After a lot of creative thinking we were able to lift it up and move it sideways into his truck.

A lot of cool experiences this week. Turns out I have 25 Catholic grandma's. We volunteer at a Catholic church. This past week we helped set up for a Christmas fair for them. There were like 25 old ladies there telling us what to do. Then they bombarded us with food and tried buying us a bunch of stuff.

I'm glad our power was out so long, because it would have made our week sooooo different and not as exciting. I'm alive though and I'm still healthy. Even if I had to survive off of Halloween candy, and the soda we had in the fridge. Good times. I can say I was part of the great windstorm of ‘17. Haha

I hope all of you had a safer week than I did and continue to do so. Byeeeeee.

The District:

Storm aftermath

(some borrowed from the mission page)

Selfies of the week:

Fresh cut

L.L. Bean tie thrifted from the Catholic thrift store they volunteer at each week